Willie Is On A Mission

Willie’s declared war on the space between our garage and our neighbor’s.

The City of Minneapolis swept through Northeast several months ago in a fit of revenue raising – er, civic duty and subsequently notified a number of us of the need to do various repairs. Our only notice was to paint the peak of our garage, which apparently was bringing down property values with its four or five bubbles of cracked paint.

And that was all it took to put William Throckmorton the III (as I like to call him) on the hectic path of home improvement.

First up, the painting. The peak of the roof. The garage door. The handle and the lock in a contrasting color.

But that wasn’t enough.

In the ultimate act of organizational skills and self-abuse, he opened the garage.

The garage, home of the majority of my son’s belongings; home to piles of scrap sheetrock, lumber, and paint cans; a den of old couches and three-legged chairs.

Surely he could do something that wouldn’t involve the garage.

And that’s when he saw the saw. The lovely, lovely saw.

He trimmed the apple tree in the backyard. He cut the limbs in two-foot sections and loaded them up in the back of the car to take to Hans, a man he’s worked with for 20 years, a man who can and will burn anything. He’ll also eat anything, but that’s another story.

He trimmed the strange weed-like trees that spring up in the cracks between the steps and next to the foundation.

He trimmed the massive grapevines by the handfuls.

Saw in hand, Big Willie wandered the yard, looking for something to cut up.

And that’s when he came across the three-foot space between the garages.

A tree had grown up into the telephone wires. In the waist-high weeds, he found three pairs of shoes; a TV; a microwave; and, to his great annoyance, a hypodermic needle. A very old needle, from the looks of it, but a needle nonetheless.

He’s been back there for three days now, cutting, clearing. There are plans for a three-foot-wide fence.

I like to tease him, of course, because 1.) I can’t seem to help myself; and 2.) once he gets going, nothing stands in his way.

I am both proud and amused.

Go, Willie! Go!